


Not the kind to fall for a girl who flashes her smile.

by WickedHeadache



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Meet-Cute, One Shot, Sweet, Tina Minoru is a Nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 05:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18067061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedHeadache/pseuds/WickedHeadache
Summary: Young Leslie is confused by a waitress the day she meets college student Tina. How do they meet? With a crash, of course. What does Leslie do? Buy her a coffee seems like the sensible thing to do.





	Not the kind to fall for a girl who flashes her smile.

One hour. There was one hour left for her to panic and study like crazy to assure she wouldn't end up dead. Figuratively. Or maybe not. She wouldn't allow herself to fail in something as mundane and uncomplicated as a college exam. If she did, she could kill herself for being such an idiot. That wasn't going to happen, though, not even if there was a protest going on right in front of her favorite coffee shop.

She groaned. People needed to stop lazing around with signs and shouts for something they couldn't actually change, and get a job. Until then, Tina could only complain at them for being such an annoyance and stopping traffic for the people that were doing something with their lives.

She pushed out of her way the California people and got yelled for it, but by then she was getting inside of the coffee shop. Tina had a busy day coming; from the first of her finals to having dinner with her mother, who would probably spend the entire afternoon asking her when she's going to get a boyfriend. She cringed at the mere thought. Tina loved her mom but sometimes she preferred not to hear the same lecture from her every day she saw her.

She had no time for boyfriends, she had a career to focus on. But some things never changed and one of those things was her mom's desire for her to have a traditional family. She wasn't troubled at all by it. She herself wanted to get married and carry children one day. It just happened that today wasn't that day. Right now, her attention had to be in drinking coffee quicker than humanly possible and re-reading her books for umpteenth time until it got stuck inside her brain before her Software Engineering exam.

But the Universe didn't seem to agree with her in letting her pass this easily. No, of course a pretty girl with golden hair that glowed beautifully with the sunshine would get in her way. The perfect distraction. Her backpack fell at the collision, and the girl yelped. She had been looking over shoulder more instead of forward and that would infuriate Tina a bit more if it weren't for the load of books waiting to be picked up from the floor.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” a sweet voice, that Tina supposed it belonged to the blonde, said. It suited her, she thought.

She shook her head. She couldn't allow herself any distractions. She kneeled and opened her backpack with worry, sighing when she saw her laptop survived the fall and didn't get a scratch. Still, she had gone through those seconds where her heart had stopped beating that seemed more like an eternity, thinking of a broken device that contained her entire life.

Grumbling under her breath, she said as she stood back up, “You better be…”

Tina laid eyes on her, immediately taking notice of the sky blue doe eyes staring deep into her soul and the slightly parted pink lips. She pressed her mouth shut at the girl. Tina was officially distracted. The blonde opened her mouth, probably to mumble another apology, when Susan, the coffee shop’s owner, cut her off.

“Leslie, dear, stop playing around and help me out here,” the lady behind the counter said.

She must be one of the new waitresses, Tina realized. She hadn't seen her in The Light before, and Tina came there every morning since she had found the quaint little cafe when she was halfway through her Sophomore year. And, she's certain, had this girl been on the coffee shop just once, there was no way she would have slipped out of her gaze. She was a little clumsy, but Susan would surely fix that with a few hours of her under her care.

Leslie, as Susan had called her, nodded at her, then turned back at Tina, who was out of the spell, her hands gripping her backpack's fabric with impatience. She stayed still, though, instead of looking for a table and starting with her frantic studying. She was caught off guard when Leslie reached for her arm with a softness that could only belong to an innocent young girl (and Tina could tell they were almost the same age), or a mother.

“I'm sorry,” she repeated.

Tina pursed her lips. “You already said that.”

“Right,” she muttered, pulling her hand back, and Tina swore she didn't mean to make her flush with embarrassment.

“May you please bring me a coffee?” She asked then, reminding herself of her priorities. “I'm kinda in a hurry.”

Much to her surprise, Leslie's face fell. She looked down, swallowing, and Tina wanted to know if she said something wrong. But a second later, the girl gave her a light smile.

“I'll be right back,” she said and hurried to the back, and if Tina's eyes wandered down Leslie's backside and those white pants that weren't at all appropriate to serve coffee, it was merely a coincidence. Tina sighed, pushing cute girls and shiny blonde hair with striking eyes out of her mind, and sat on the first empty seat at her sight.

Taking her copies of ‘Working Effectively with Legacy Code,’ ‘Advanced Software Engineering: Expanding the Frontiers of Software Technology,’ and 'Practical Malware Analysis,’ her laptop and two notebooks from the backpack, she inhaled deeply as she started from the beginning. Fifteen minutes passed by without her noticing until somebody's silhouette disturbed the background of the calm cafe. Tina looked up with a scowl, only to dissolve when her eyes stared back at the friendly, blue ones of Leslie.

Leslie was carrying two cups of coffee. Tina couldn't help but gape a little when she put one on the table in front of her, following that action by sitting down with her.

“What are you doing?” She questioned her and, inwardly, her sanity.

“Well, if I have to buy you coffee the least you can do is keeping me company,” the girl shrugged, as if it was that simple. Tina blinked, and she chuckled.

“I'm sorry? I don't find this funny at all,” she scowled. “Hasn't Susan explained you that serving coffee is part of your job?”

But Leslie's grin increased, annoying Tina even more until she said softly the next words. “I don't work here.”

“Oh. _Oh_ ,” Tina felt her cheeks reddening as the irritation was replaced by shame. “I'm-”

“It's okay,” she dismissed it with a wave of her hand, then gave a pointed look at Tina's cup. “And it's on me.”

“Oh,” she said again. It's been a while since she had been out of words, it just wasn't in her. Yet now, when in presence of a pretty girl, it seemed her brain refused to cooperate, or short-circuited. The last one seemed more likely. “Thanks.”

Leslie just took a sip of her own cup. “I didn't know what you liked, since you weren't exactly specific on what you wanted, so I hope that is okay.”

Tina, trying to ease her mind, grabbed her cup and took a sip, only to repress a grimace. That was why she preferred tea, and why she drank her coffee with milk and lots of sugar: it was too bitter for her. However, she didn't do a very good job hiding her distaste, it seemed, since Leslie gave her an apologetic smile.

“Oh, no, it's fine,” she said, for pure courtesy. “It just needs sugar, that's all.”

Leslie handed her sugar, half-believing Tina's excuse, as she eyed quizzically Tina's books. Tina was figuring out a way to tell her she was busy and would prefer to be alone, but her mind didn't cooperate, finding the girl sitting across her too interesting to hush her away. Out of the blue and without permission, Leslie grabbed one and raised her eyebrows with a hum. Tina frowned, wondering if she should take her book back and tell her to stop snooping around.

“‘Advanced Software Engineering: Expanding the Frontiers of Software Technology.’” Leslie read out loud before Tina could complain. “You're one of the smart ones, huh?”

“I'm in my Junior year in UC,” Tina explained. “As a matter of fact, I have one of my finals later today.”

“Good luck, then,” Leslie smiled.

“Don't need it,” she replied, raising her chin. “I’ve been nailing all my tests since I was a kid. I'm the best of my class, if I say so myself,” she gave her a somewhat flirty smirk.

Leslie appeared amused by her confidence bordering with arrogance. She left the book only to grab her notebook.

“You like Matrix?” She asked, looking up from the stickers on the cover.

“Hey!” Tina glared, snatching her notebook from Leslie's hands. “Hasn't your mother told you it's rude to intrude in people's business?”

To be fair, Leslie did blush and tuck her head sheepishly, twiddling her hands under the table. “Right, sorry.” She took a deep breath and stood up. “It'll be better if I just leave you to your books.”

Tina didn't say a thing. She couldn't. Leslie was already gone, flat gold shoes clacking all the way to the backroom. Tina glared at the empty chair. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or mad at herself for pushing the girl away. She decided the first. Leslie was an cheerful, touchy-feely girl who couldn't mind her own business. Not that she hadn't found her endearing or that her skin hadn't tingled when she touched her arm oh so softly, a traitorous voice in her mind reminded her.

Tina looked down at her books and laptop with a lost expression. She _was_ relieved, she really was, even if she could feel the thrumming of her heart echoing against her throat in a quick rhythm. Tina wasn't quite certain what that was supposed to mean, but she dismissed it right away. She was just being dramatic.

She opened the book Leslie had been holding no more than a few minutes ago, and craved to slam her head against the table at her mind for helpfully making that relation.

* * *

Tina shouldn't have been surprised when Leslie didn't appear in the coffee shop the next day and the day after that. She hadn't seen the blonde that made her lost her mind before that day, and she had probably been just passing by to never come back. Still, Tina had hoped to collide with her again, so she could apologize. Maybe not apologize (given that she had nothing to be sorry for), but to say something. Anything. Make conversation. Know where she came from. Make up for her harshness.

It had been a long day — a long week. The finals season was over and so was her Junior year. She was breathing serenely, feeling the freedom invading her body through her nostrils every time she inhaled. It was late in the afternoon, the sun wasn't as strong, heating her skull, and Tina wanted to drink some tea and relax. So she might as well do it, Heaven knew she deserved it.

She entered the coffee shop with a tranquil look on her face and approached the counter. The place wasn't busy at all, and the customers that were there were already settled, so the barista took no time in getting to her, nodding after she asked for Earl Grey. Looking around, Tina didn't find Susan, which was a pity. Every now and then, when she was alone without much to do, Susan could make a pretty neat companion. She sighed when she finally sat down in a booth.

“Thanks,” she muttered to the woman after she placed a cup of tea in front of her.

Hands wrapped around the heat of the drink, she took a sip, letting her eyes wander through the coffee shop. She rolled her eyes at a young couple being way to touchy-feely for Tina's tastes, but softened at an elderly couple, smiling and talking. She ignored the overworked grown man sitting alone in one of the tables. Then, Tina saw her.

Leslie, or at least Leslie's back. Hair yellow as corn fell in waves down her back, her white hair being covered both by it and the chair. A white man was talking to her, and Tina just wished to be facing Leslie to see her expression. The man kept talking and even dared to take the woman's hand. Tina's head snapped at it. Leslie was on a date, she realized. She bit inside of her cheeks and almost sighed in relief when Leslie slipped her hand away from his.

“You wanted to talk about something important, you said?” She heard Leslie say.

Tina stood up and stealthily moved to have a better view of the girl. She was carrying a bored look on her face that she tried to hide with a phony smile.

“Right, I should just get on with it. Shouldn't keep you in the dark. Secrets are shadows, and there are no shadows in the light,” he said with a laugh.

“What?” Leslie's brows burrowed.

“It's part of my preacher's lecture.”

“Right, the church thing,” she wrinkled her nose in what Tina assumed was distaste. She sniggered.

The man, however, didn't seem to notice. “Yes, the Book of Gibborim was a savior to me.” And he kept rambling about it, forgetting he was supposed to tell her something.

But Tina was more focused on Leslie's face. She had paled, drifting off from whatever the man was saying. She looked like a caged animal, unable to breathe. Tina knew that look all too well. She herself had carried it every time a family member disheartened her goals, believed that technology was a waste of time and nothing more than a hobby. She still carried it when facing the memory of her high school boyfriend cheating on her and humiliating her.

Tina looked down at her cup of tea, not thinking it twice before walking by the table and “accidentally” tripping on her own foot, the content of the cup spilling all of the man. She heard Leslie gasping and the man cursing, but all Tina could do was wink at the girl.

“You’re paying the dry cleaners,” he demanded, and it made her snap back to reality.

“Excuse me? It was an accident,” she defended herself, hoping he wasn't the kind of guy that liked a confrontation.

And it turned out she was right. He stared at his shirt with a hopeless sigh, then looked up at Leslie apologetically. “I'm sorry, Leslie.”

“No, it's fine, Frank,” the blonde reassured him. “You go clean up.”

He smiled, relieved. “See you later,” he said, leaning to kiss her cheek before he abandoned the coffee shop.

Leslie said nothing, and Tina sat down in front of her, eyes flicking from the bright eyes to the deep breath coming out from the pink lips.

“You okay?” She asked. “You seemed a bit...in distress.”

“Yes, I'm fine,” she said, staring at Tina's hands over the table with a blank look. She didn't seem 'fine.’ However, Tina nodded and stood up. “No, wait,” Leslie called after her. “Thanks.”

“It was nothing,” she responded. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

Some sort of light ignited in Leslie's eyes. “Please,” she said.

With a last look at Leslie, Tina walked toward the counter. To her dismay, the barista was busy. She eyed nervously at the woman waiting for her over her shoulder. Tina had been looking forward to talk to her again (for some reason even she couldn't explain — maybe she just liked her) and the more time she took to come back, the more chances there were for this opportunity to slip through her fingers. The woman behind the counter turned to her, and Tina asked for another cup of Earl Grey while stealing some napkins to clean the mess she occasioned.

When she turned around, cup and napkins at hand, Tina stopped on her tracks. Leslie was gone.

* * *

The hot drink danced around her tongue and a rush of delight went down her body. Tina opened her book and focused entirely on it between sips. It was the first essay of the year, and she could pride herself on claiming it easy. Nevertheless, she had books to read, and laptops to write in. This time, though, she took it easy. Sort of.

“Good morning, sweetie.”

She looked up at the familiar voice and gave Susan a slight smile. “Morning.”

“You seem busy again.”

“Aren't I always?” She arched an eyebrow.

The older woman shrugged. “I take it the hard part of the semester has begun.”

“You mean, my favorite part of the year.”

“You are really something, child,” Susan smiled fondly.

And she gave her a smug look. “I know.”

Susan chuckled and walked toward behind the counter to tell something to the people in the kitchen. Tina loved that woman, and, at his point, Susan knew her as if she was her daughter. Even though Tina wasn't exactly the chatty sort, but she liked Susan, and she might even trust her.

She drank from her cup of coffee again, grimacing when she found it warm instead of hot. She dragged it back to her lips, having still half a cup and not the money to waste it away, as she typed in her laptop an introduction (that she'd definitely end up erasing later), her eyes going back and forth from the screen to the book.

The cup was already empty as the clock ticked closely to ten in that Saturday morning, and her hair was slipping out of her ponytail, so she just let it free and fall down her shoulders. Tina tilted her head back with a groan. Her neck was hurting, and it was a terrible timing for it. A hand grabbing a cup of something appeared at her sight, and she blinked for a moment before looking up to find Leslie smiling down and twiddling her other hand at her side.

“Hey,” Tina frowned.

“Hi. It's green tea,” she said, and Tina's eyes flicked to it.

“Okay…” She narrowed her eyes in question.

“It's a thank you, for saving me the other day.”

Almost in autopilot, Tina grabbed what Leslie offered to her. “Saving you?” She wondered.

“He just…” Leslie sighed. “He was talking about a topic a bit sensitive to me, and I think you noticed that, so thank you.” Then her brows furrowed in doubt. “Did you?”

“I did,” she took a sip of tea, humming as she tasted it.

“I guess I did hit the bull's-eye this time,” Leslie commented, nodding at the drink. “When we met,” she hesitates, “I didn't mean to pry.”

“Didn't you?” She arched an eyebrow skeptically.

Leslie's neck reddened. “I didn't! It's just- when I'm nervous I tend to...touch things.”

“Nervous?” Her eyebrows flew up to her hairline. “Do I make you nervous?”

“A little bit,” she admitted. “Though it's mostly because…” Leslie shook her head, silenting herself.

“Because…?” Tina encouraged her.

“Nevermind me,” she dismissed it, then glanced at the counter over her shoulder. “You know, my mom has owned this place for years and I not once had seen you here before then.”

“Susan's your mom?” She raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. “I didn't even know she had a daughter.”

Leslie hummed. “Not many know,” she leaned over the table closer to Tina, her forehead wrinkling as she whispered playfully. “She likes to pretend she's too young for it.”

Tina, who had stopped half drink perplexed at Leslie's closeness, laughed. Once she calmed down she thought about what Leslie had said before. “I come here every day.”

That caught Leslie's attention. “Really? You spend more time with my own mother than I do!”

“Oh?” She arched a brow smoothly. “I pass by every morning. Do you come here often, Leslie?”

Leslie bit her lips and it didn't take long for Tina to realize she was trying to repress a smile. Not after that she took notice of what she said. Tina snorted.

“I didn't mean it like that,” she swore.

“Of course,” Leslie said.

“I'm serious!”

“I don't mind,” Leslie replied, not paying attention to her, resting her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand. “You can mean it like that whenever you want.”

Tina almost laughed again, then she noticed Leslie was dead serious. And she was also giving her a once-over. Tina couldn't help but smirk. So, Leslie was attracted to her. She felt more at ease with that knowledge.

“Well, if that was the case, believe me, my pickup lines are much better than that.”

“I would hope so,” Leslie snickered. “I could call you a lot of things, but I'd like to think mediocre is not one of them.”

“You don't have to worry about that. Wait-,” she looked up. “What things?”

Leslie took her chin between her fingers with a thoughtful look. “Charming,” she started, and Tina's brows flew up amusedly. She was more like… scary. “A little bossy. The kind of girl that, and stop me if I get this wrong,” she smirked, and Tina narrowed her eyes, “would fall for a girl who flashes her smile.”

“I'm sorry,” she laughed, “but that's plain down wrong.”

Leslie just flashed her smile. Tina swooned a little bit. Not that she let Leslie see it. “What, the last one or all above?”

“For starters, I don't think I have been called “charming” once in my entire life.”

“Then you've been hanging out with the wrong people,” Leslie replied. “After all, you're my own personal Prince Charming.”

“Well, that doesn't sound that bad.”

“ _That_ bad?”

Tina continued. “Prince Charming always gets the girl, doesn't he?

Tina's eyes flicked to Leslie's face interestedly as her smirk increased behind the cup. It had been a while since she had last flirted with somebody, and there wasn't any despair in it, unlike the last man her mom had tried to set her up with before they moved to America.

Leslie looked at her dead in the eye. “Always.” And Tina's breath hitched.

Leslie had something. A naivete, a brightness odd of a young woman, even one that hadn't known the world. A sweetness she could drown on and she wouldn't even care. But there was also a mischief hiding behind the blue eyes that Tina couldn't figure out for the life of her. The kind that always made secrets spicier. The kind that would be her doom if she didn't watch her back. That was the sort of person Tina was interested on cracking like a code, that she was willing to waste time on (if it could even be called 'waste’ when whom she would be ogling deserved to be admired.)

Tina looked down at her book, sighing as her mood slipped off. She had got distracted. She pulled her gaze back up to Leslie, who was blinking at her in confusion at the sudden change in the atmosphere, and she ripped the tip off of a paper of her notebook, proceeding to scribble down in it. Tina passed it to Leslie, and she frowned at it.

“This is…”

“My number,” she said. “Look, I'm a little busy right now, I feel my head is tearing apart with all of this.”

“Oh, okay,” the blonde said with a forced smile. She stood up, and Tina grabbed her wrist before she could walk away.

“No, wait,” she hurried, and Leslie looked back with wonder in her eyes. “I was thinking that, maybe,” Tina bit her lower lip as she continued, “you could call me sometime.”

Leslie beamed at her, and Tina just knew the answer. The blonde inhaled sharply, glancing down at the number and the name over it with careful eye, then back at her. She sucked on her lower lip as she smiled.

“Tina,” she said, like tasting how it moved around her tongue. “Lovely name.”

Tina wanted for earth to swallow her on the spot. She hadn't introduced herself before that little note. To be fair, though, Leslie hadn't asked. She played it cool — or tried — and smiled quite awkwardly.

“So…”

“Maybe I'll call you,” Leslie replied, though, a teasing glint in her light eyes. “Sometime.”

Tina watched her take her cup and stand up, winking at her before she sashayed away from the table and towards the counter, her pants appearing especially tight around her hips now that Tina had sent her away. Of one thing, Tina was sure: she was going to have one hard time trying to focus for the rest of the day.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!  
> This may seem out of character, but it's actually Senior Deanoru at their twenties (canon Leslie and headcanon Tina)


End file.
